


anise

by orphan_account



Series: coven drabbles [2]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Jinki and mentions of nonbinary taem as usual, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 16:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10495233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kibum tries to give Minho a lesson in tarot reading and Jinki watches from a safe distance.





	

Jinki’s bringing down some rosemary from their room to dry in the kitchen window when they hear what is unmistakably Kibum giving Minho a divination lesson.

“You just have to use your intuition. Don’t think too much about it.”

Jinki smiles to themself. ‘Don’t think too much about it’ has been the theme of just about every lesson Minho’s gotten thus far, and so far the only thing he’d accurately managed to divine was that the coven was keeping a secret from Victoria, which everybody but Victoria already knew.

Minho and Kibum are seated across from each other at the kitchen table when Jinki enters, an uneven stack of cards between them. Minho’s got three of the tarot cards laid out in front of him, hunched over them with his fingers laced like it’s an interrogation. He glances up when he hears Jinki enter, but Jinki just points back towards the cards and mouths focus.

“Rosemary?” Jonghyun asks, looking up from where he was slouched so low in one of the kitchen chairs that Jinki didn’t even see him at first. He leans towards Jinki to sniff at the plant as they pass, but they shake the leaves in his face and he jumps back again.

“It’s not for you,” Jinki says, reaching around Jonghyun for a dish towel. “It’s for Sunyoung.” They spread out the towel with one hand and lay the sprigs over it (they don’t know what spells Jonghyun’s been doing in here, but they don’t want it messing with the fresh rosemary). Jonghyun makes a vaguely upset noise at them, but most of his concentration is still taken up watching Minho struggle.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Minho says finally, lifting his head from the cards in front of him.

Kibum heaves a sigh and sinks down in his seat. “Look, you’re making this harder than it needs to be. You already have all the meanings of the cards memorized--”

“Kind of,” Minho cuts in with a uncertain shrug. “But it just doesn’t feel right? Like, it’s so natural when you guys do readings.”

“Because it is natural. It’s just something you feel,” Kibum says with the voice of someone who’s said the same thing a hundred times that day. “You can’t force it. It’s all about intuition.”

“But you can’t just tell me to be intuitive!” Minho groans, rubbing at his face with his hands. “You can’t just be like, ‘Minho, feel this thing,’ and it happens. There has to be some kind of method to it.”

“That is the method,” Kibum says firmly. “You have to just trust what the cards tell you.”

“Nothing. They are telling me absolutely nothing.” Minho glares at Kibum over the table like it’s his fault. “Your deck hates me.”

“You’re not making him read that weird deck that’s just ink splotches again, are you?” Jonghyun asks. He leans toward Minho now, trying to get a look at the cards.

“This is not their fault!” Kibum shoots back indignantly. Beside him, Jonghyun reaches over and swipes the deck off the table, shuffling it between his hands. “My cards are all perfect.”

Jinki makes a noncommittal noise in their throat and Kibum whips around to face them. “Your decks are kind of scary sometimes,” Jinki says carefully, reaching up to tie one of the rosemary branches to the ledge above the windowsill. Hopefully it doesn’t get too cold too soon--the kitchen window collects a lot of condensation, and they don’t want the rosemary to mold, but there’s just no more room in their bedroom to hang them.

Kibum shoots a glare at Jinki that they choose not to see. “You’re not one to talk,” he says. Which is fair. Most people who aren’t Jinki are put off by the thought of reading fortunes with a deck of playing cards.

“Maybe I should learn to read oracle cards instead,” Minho pipes up, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table.

“Don’t,” says Jonghyun. “I don’t know what mine are saying half the time.” He’s still shuffling the cards with a kind of practiced ease that Minho admires longingly when Kibum finally notices and snatches the deck back.

“I wasn’t done!” Jonghyun wines.

“Ask before you take my stuff,” Kibum says coldly. Jinki watches over their shoulder as Kibum cuts the deck out of habit, even as he says to Jonghyun, “I’m not doing a reading for you.”

“Just draw one card?” Jonghyun asks. “Tell me how my day’s going to go.”

Kibum rolls his eyes, but he still flips over the top card in the deck. “Ace of Cups.”

Jinki stifles a laugh that they hope Jonghyun doesn’t hear, and Minho perks up almost immediately. “I know what that card means,” he says proudly. “It means Taemin’s coming over today.”

Jinki has a harder time muffling their laugh this time, but it’s overshadowed by Kibum and Minho, who seem to have no problem laughing in Jonghyun’s face. “How many times have you pulled the Ace of Cups in the last two weeks?” Kibum asks, trying to look like he’s asking a serious question and failing.

Jonghyun just glares at him. “You’re not supposed to laugh at your clients,” he says, taking the card back from Kibum and studying it more closely. It’s a nice card to look at--a blue-washed cat guarding a chalice--but as far as Jinki can tell, it doesn’t magically reveal itself to be a different card.

“You should at least be proud of me,” Minho says after he’s calmed down a bit. “That’s the only good reading I’ll ever be able to do.”

“If you feel good about that one, we can do a three-card spread with it,” Kibum says, sliding the deck towards Minho again.

Minho looks like he’s about to scream, and Jinki’s got all their rosemary hung up to dry, so they figure it’s as good a time as any to get out of the kitchen before a fight breaks out. Jonghyun seems to think the same thing--he makes a valiant attempt to follow Jinki out, but Kibum grabs his arm and yanks him back into his seat. “I really don’t need--” Jonghyun starts, but Kibum waves him off.

“Yes you do,” Kibum says, taking the card from Jonghyun’s hand yet again and laying it back on the table. “Look,” he huffs as Jinki’s turning out of the door. He flips over the next card in the deck and lays them out side by side. Ace of Cups and Three of Wands. “What’s connecting those two cards?”

“You pulled them both from the same deck,” Minho deadpans. Jinki doesn’t stick around long enough to hear what Kibum yells back. 

**Author's Note:**

> ace of cups is a card about new relationships and beginning romance, for those of us who aren't divination-inclined. 
> 
> message me if you wanna talk about what tarot decks you think shinee would use because this is important to me.


End file.
